


relativity

by silkroe



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Established Relationship, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Pining, Sexual Content, Wet Dream, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silkroe/pseuds/silkroe
Summary: They saw the sea together, defended Paradis together, became something a little more than friends together. Now Eren is gone, or so Jean thinks until a fateful letter delivers a version of the man he loves that sounds like a complete stranger Jean has never met in his life. Desperate for halcyon days, Jean does what he can to cope with the fallout.
Relationships: Jean Kirstein/Eren Yeager
Comments: 9
Kudos: 53





	1. proclamation

**Author's Note:**

> This is based off a post I saw that suggested everyone who came to Marley in chapter 123 stayed in Marley as long as Eren was gone, which makes sense to me, because…who would be mailing letters to Paradis, right? So, I’m being a little generous with time constraints here. I’m not gonna pretend to know how long Eren and co. were actually in Marley, but the general consensus is anywhere from 2-5 months, so I went with the middle ground there. Other than that and until eventual canon divergence, I’ll try to keep things as accurate as possible on Eren’s end—as for the 104th, well, that’s what the fic is for.
> 
> MAJOR OBLIGATORY SPOILER WARNING HERE. Please do not read this fic if you haven’t read the manga and care about getting spoiled for Season 4. I plan on being canon compliant-ish up until chapter 110ish, and even then I’m still keeping most of the major plot points the same. If I stick to my guns and finish this before we finally get Eren’s POV and actually know what the fuck is going on with him the ending of my fic will likely be inaccurate endgame wise, but hey, I’m not gonna wait around another year for Yams to finish breaking my heart. (A crumb of Eren POV next month Yams? Please? As a treat?)
> 
> Anyway, that was ultra-long winded and for those of you still here, I hope you enjoy!

Jean had once heard Armin say time is relative. It was years ago, over a dinner table in the outlet Survey Corps barracks that housed them when they weren’t risking their lives at the port, barring invading Marleyan ships from ambush entry, long after the last titan had been cut free of its mindless torture. He’s since forgotten what inspired Armin to say so—a line from Connie, maybe, that they’d come so far in such a short amount of time, they’d learned so much, or perhaps a groan from Sasha about how they hadn’t had _this_ much meat to go around in ages. Armin’s explanation then had been anything but condescending, but the words gut Jean as he is now, leave his heart aching as if frozen.

Yes, time is relative. Jean can attest to that much. Because the sleepless and hollow months he has spent without Eren by his side feel like lifetimes, eons, eternities. Half of his soul gone, just like that—magicked away without a word like those magicians they saw for the first time on the continent, the trick where they disappear a white bunny in one of those black funny looking top hats. 

Where did it all go wrong? 

_Why did you leave me?_

He’s sitting on a long bench, unconcealed in enemy territory. Around him, children laugh, climbing metal fixtures he’s long since been informed are playgrounds. Marleyan parents keep watchful eyes on their little darlings, lest one of them fall and hurt themselves. These children, just like any other, carefree and innocent and thoughtless, same as the children he grew up with—the same child _he_ was—before life within the walls became purgatory itself. The luxury of being a child ripped from small hands, told instead to be a soldier, grip a blade, retake what was stolen. And then the children who succeeded in doing so found a hell deeper than any of them could imagine lurking just beyond the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Jean remembers things he said to Eren in the past. Things that happened before they became—something, and Jean hesitates to call it that because his self-assurance that it is _anything_ has been waning as of late in the shadow of his would-be lover’s absence. He remembers the burdens he placed on then-small shoulders, stacked atop the hopes and dreams and decisions and commands of everyone else, clinging to Eren as if he were a lifeline. How awful and isolating that must have been.

_“It’s a tough spot to be in, Eren. Whether or not all those people died for nothing…it all depends on you.”_

Half-heartedly kicking a nearby pebble away, he bends to tuck his face into broad hands. His suit tightens around him at the strained angle, and how the _fuck_ do Marleyans walk around every day in this suffocating crap, but he needs darkness right now, needs respite from the sunlight to more thoroughly degrade himself for every fight he and Eren ever had, every lie he ever fed himself that they were _fine,_ because things have never been fine when it comes to them and their fucked up little world. What he and Eren shared was something he never wanted to let go of, but Eren…how does he feel about Jean now, wherever he is? He digs the heels of his hands in harder, sees colors burst in the blackness behind his eyes from the pressure. 

_If I had talked with him more… If I had just listened a bit closer… If I had_ paid attention, _dammit…_

His swirling thoughts are loud enough to deafen him, and it’s only when someone places a light hand on his shoulder that his head snaps up, and shit, has he been found out—

“Jean,” comes a familiar voice, and while it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to light again, he knows it’s Sasha by sound, smell, warmth. His eyes dart around a bit frantically to affirm that it’s just her, there are no blue uniforms wandering about, they’re still safe. “Thought you’d be here. Levi called a meeting, I think somethin’ happened,” she finishes, giving him a knowing squeeze. Jean brushes her away and says nothing because Sasha isn’t panicking so it can’t be anything too serious; he lends a curt nod and follows as she leads him from the unwitting hustle and bustle of the families behind them. 

It’s almost laughable how uneasy the normalcy he receives here makes him. No spitting, no cursing, no disdain. All because these people don’t know he is an Eldian. He wonders if Eren thinks about that too, lets the injustice of it all stoke flames of rage within his chest. Although _that_ Eren is long gone he admits to himself time and again that he misses it, the breathtaking and headstrong bastard he let couldn’t help but fall in love with.

In the uncharacteristic silence of their walk, Jean reminds himself that Eren isn’t the only one who changed. They all have, in various degrees and varying ways. Sasha is no longer the butt of food jokes as she’s learned to grow into the fine young woman she is today—still a little eccentric, but it meshes well with her heart of gold and unexpected wit. She carries herself a little taller now, even here, surrounded by people who hate them as naturally as they breathe. A small smile finds him as he regards the back of her bob. The redeemed potato girl has turned reliable.

Some passersby nod or tip their hats to him in the street market that borders the road to the Azumabito residence, and getting used to _that_ particular behavior had been such a culture shock to Mikasa when they first arrived that she rarely went into crowds when she wasn’t accompanied by at least three of their friends. Jean had caught on quick, however, and he now nods and tips back as prompted although he is never the one to initiate those idiotic little acts of acknowledgement. Regardless, their mannerisms are important, so he and Sasha walk in tandem now as if they were a couple. It makes them look less like they’re on a mission and more like they’re on a stroll through the neighborhood—good for cover. Nicolo would probably grace Jean’s face with a good right hook if he could see them striding like this, arm in arm across busy cobblestone streets. 

Upon reaching the grand Azumabito residence, they slip inside the familiar lobby dressed up in Eastern decorations. Blades similar to the ones they used against titans sit on display around the perimeter, proud and useless next to suits of clunky looking armor, all dyed in bright colors. It’s a wonder people of old were able to move around in those, let alone _fight_ in them as Miss Kiyomi once explained. Jean can’t help but imagine if their own ODM gear will one day be hung up for display like this—then hurriedly buries the thought down deep. He doesn’t want to think about titans or fighting right now, deep in hostile lands as he is. Besides, their ODM gear comes off as pretty unremarkable when compared to those loud suits of steel displayed before them.

The room is empty save Jean and Sasha and décor. Their lonesome footsteps echo off hardwood and tall ceiling as they cross it, heading for the main room. Sasha raps on polished wood to announce their arrival, steps inside the wide living space furnished by velvet couches and rugs arranged around a short coffee table situated at its center.

Inside, Jean is greeted not by words but by his friends’ daunting and drawn expressions. The air he breathes now is thick and taut. “What happened?” he asks, wary; he does a headcount on impulse that finds everyone accounted for. Well, not _everyone,_ but the absence of a pair of lucid green eyes is something that lives in a hole in his heart rather than something that needs to be confirmed.

“Eren contacted us.” Levi is carefully containing fury where he sits in the way he slaps a stack of papers and an envelope down on the table. “Read it for yourself.”

The news, offhandedly directed at him as it is, paralyzes Jean. He doesn’t advance, doesn’t make a sound. Levi glares daggers in his direction from across the room, but the threat is paltry opposed to the spear his words impale. 

_Eren._

Sasha moves in his place, takes long strides across the small living space to swipe shuffled papers from the table and begins to read to herself. It feels like gravity has definitely intensified in the past five seconds because why else can’t Jean step forward, why else can’t he will himself to read memorable scrawl on parchment, why else does he simply not want to know what Eren has to say after all this time? And then it comes to him, slowly, unlike it had on the battlefield faced with fiendish titans that still plague his nightmares: fear. The emotion may as well be his friend at this point. It curls deep and ugly and cold in his gut, permeates to chill his limbs, numbs his fingers. He feels heavy and light all at once.

Before he can react, Sasha is suddenly in front of him shoving papers into Jean’s chest, face turned away. Jean brings a hand up to hold them there, unsure of what else to do as his deliverer huffs a minute _“Idiot”_ under her breath before stomping into the next room, Mikasa trailing with quick and silent feet after her. Jean’s fingers tremor ever so slightly as he pulls the letter away from his heart to read what’s written.

_Everyone,_

The romantic within him be damned, Jean grips the paper harder, crinkling the edges to ripping point. He rebukes his assumption that Eren would write to _him,_ personally, with every inch of his tender soul.

_I’m pleased my letter has found you all well. I have infiltrated a Marleyan hospital as a wounded soldier, made possible only by the unnecessary struggle between Marleyan and Middle-East Alliance forces. The people here are much similar to us, aren’t they? They laugh the same way, berate others the same way, hate us the same way we hated titans…if only there was a path to a middle ground that didn’t involve bloodshed. But that is exactly what I intend to inflict. Our existence can never know peace without it._

_Courtesy of my brother, I’ve gathered information regarding a play that will take place in Liberio, the Eldian internment zone, guised as a festival day. I am sure you have heard about it. A week from now a man named Willy Tybur, head of the family that possesses the Warhammer Titan, will present it. I plan to be there when he does to obtain the Warhammer on that day._

_As it turns out, Marleyan officers and other worldly officials have been invited to attend. This, I believe, is an opportunity like no other to begin our counterattack and crush the top brass of armies around the world that intend to destroy us. While I retrieve the Warhammer, I also intend to kill as many of these officials as I can. Even so, Marley will not allow me to hit them unchecked, and I will require support while I demolish them. I leave it to you to come up with a sufficient plan to that end, Hange._

_Armin, I require your assistance specifically as well, and you will need to destroy the Marleyan naval port along with the entirety of its fleet by use of your Colossal Titan. This is not a problem than can be solved by peacemaking._

_The next matter we must broach is something the Captain will not like but something that is necessary all the same. We must cooperate with and bring Zeke Yeager back with us to Paradis Island. He will likely be deployed by Marley against you. If possible, making it look as if we have killed him is preferable, but he must remain alive. This is non-negotiable. You may restrain him all you like, but he cannot be killed._

_Don’t look for me until the time comes._

_Eren_

Gaze blurry, Jean wants to tear the letter to pieces, then stitch it whole again only to destroy it once more. In three months, _three months,_ this is all this man has to say. This indifferent declaration of war. So Eren assumes that the people here, the people he has called _friends, comrades, captains, lovers,_ will simply bow to his will without question? What of the future _Jean_ desires, the one where Eren is in it and smiling and sure, maybe they don’t know what the future holds for them, but at least Eren is _there_ and his existence isn’t reduced to these miserable sentences scribbled on cheap foreign paper. Jean staggers backwards, caught by a sturdy wall that supports his weight as a limp hand falls and lets the letter flutter to the floor.

“Don’t look for me,” Jean repeats, barely a whisper. It takes everything he has not to give in to weak knees and crash to the floor.

Connie comes over, bends to pick the letter up, gives Jean’s shoulder a firm pat. Everyone here is aware of how close Jean and Eren had become in the three years they spent defending Paradis. They’d been nearly inseparable, and while they still bickered like an old married couple they had long ago lost any real vehemence in their exchanges to one another. Their friends didn’t know _how_ close, though, unbeknownst to the degree of intimacy they had shared before…this. These three insufferable months of separation. Jean flings his hat off to run a hand through grown out hair. _Idiot,_ Sasha had said, and she is more right than she knows. He is an idiot too.

“We could find that brat with the information he’s given us,” Levi says, chin braced on laced fingers supported by elbows propped on knees. Pensive. “There are only so many hospitals that care for Eldian soldiers.”

“Eren told us not to go searching for him though,” Armin reminds him, sounding small. “Also, we need to consider how dangerous it would be to investigate like that…it’d be like putting a target on our backs.”

At his side, Connie waves the letter around, ever a dramatic. “Hello? Are we just going to ignore the fact that Eren is telling us to go to _war_ right now? _In Marley? Just like that?”_

From the other room, Sasha calls again, “Idiot!”

Shouting back, Connie counters, “Who’re you calling an idiot, idiot?”

“Not _you,_ idiot, Eren’s an idiot!”

“Get back in here, idiot!”

Another round of stomps later and Sasha is back, seething, Mikasa by her side with this unreadable expression shadowing her fine features. Jean doesn’t need to imagine the turmoil she’s going through—it’s likely much similar to his own, this disgusting pit of trepidation that has opened up within him. That letter doesn’t sound like Eren at all. The passionate and hopeless Eren they know and love, the Eren that told them they were the most important people to him…yet this letter makes them all sound like mere chess pieces, free for him to move around as he pleases, regardless of their own say on the matter. Emotionless, devoid of empathy.

…Wait.

“Connie’s right.” Pushing himself off the wall, Jean recovers from his initial shock, rolls his shoulders back to face his friends with false conviction. “We need to talk about this seriously. Are we gonna go along with this? Think about it—how’s Eren gonna get the Warhammer? He needs to _eat_ the shifter, right? He’ll have to turn into a titan to do that. Then killing military officials, I imagine he’ll have to rampage for that, too. And if he does all this at a festival…” He grits his teeth hard enough to hurt. He doesn’t want to think about it, the mere insinuation makes his fists curl, but Eren…he really isn’t giving him a choice, is he? “That would be…doing exactly what Reiner and Bertolt did…”

Silence greets him as he trails off, and his gaze falls to the floor. All this time he had been wondering when Eren would come back to them, what he was thinking, what his motives were…these are not the answers he hoped for. Not by a long shot. This is tyranny, the same tyranny Eren had shaped his entire life against. At this moment more than ever Jean wants to scream at him, punch him, kiss him, hold him tight. What he would give to have Eren in his arms again and help him think this through, what he would give to _understand_ him. But the Eren in that letter is unrecognizable, a different person entirely, maybe. Jean had seen the signs pointing to change, yes. He could never have predicted this magnitude in shift, though, this devastating earthquake out of the nowhere set on demolishing everything he knows or thought he knew about the man he loves.

“If we can’t go looking for him, we only have two options available to us,” Hange says. They have a vicelike grip on the back of Levi’s chair, knuckles white. They’ve never looked more furious, and Jean winces from the intensity of their one-eyed gaze directed at Eren’s letter clutched in Connie’s hand. “We can either cooperate with this reckless joke of a plan or abandon Eren.”

Mikasa steps forward in challenge, voices the objection Jean can’t bring himself to say. “We _can’t_ abandon Eren. I won’t allow it.”

A shrewd eye regards her as if Mikasa were a specimen under one of their microscopes. “I know you want nothing more than for Eren to come back to us, Mikasa, but this plan is foolish. I wager Erwin would have laughed at it.”

“It’s not entirely without merit,” Armin interjects, his guard up—defensive. Even all these years later Erwin remains a sore spot for him. At the gapes he receives in reply, he continues a bit flustered, “I—I mean yes, the methods Eren is planning are terrible, but dealing with high-ranking military officials all at once would buy us time to plan our next course of action—how we’re going to protect Paradis. The world is already against us, but targeting the people who are the foundations of world militaries would put them all in disarray…” His words are as heavy as the tension that weighs the room down.

“Armin, he’s telling you to destroy a _port,”_ Connie reminds him, high-pitched and incredulous. “There’s no way you’re okay with that!”

“What else can we do, Connie,” Armin’s voice is weak in comparison, “when we need Eren? Like Hange said, we only have two options, but only one of them is the right choice. Even if it’s…” He doesn’t finish—doesn’t need to.

Hange throws their hands up, lets out a groan akin to that of a dying animal. “He really got us, huh! Good job, Eren! We’re sufficiently cornered!”

There isn’t much to be said about that; Eren is using them, quite plainly. Knowing how invaluable he is, he has decided to put complete and utter faith in that the Survey Corps will come to his aid regardless of how horrifying his plan sounds, and he will benefit from doing so. Another chill comes over Jean, wracking his frame. In a week he’ll be wreaking the same havoc that has happened to him and his friends and his family, time and time again. Does Eren even realize what he’s forcing them to do? This isn’t the same kind of moral abandonment they came to terms with when they faced the Interior Police all those years ago (oh, how little they’d known back then); this is bringing the slaughterhouse to droves of unsuspecting pigs.

The discussion drags on, there’s a lot of Levi asserting he will make Zeke suffer as much as possible when they obtain him, a lot of questioning Eren’s motives, but eventually everyone but Jean, Connie and Sasha trickle out of the room; Armin with Hange for planning purposes, Levi and Mikasa by themselves. Jean doesn’t know he’s being led the couch like a tethered horse until Connie plops him there, takes a seat across from him with Sasha by his side.

“You look like you’ve seen the reaper,” Connie comments, though he looks no better himself. Clasped hands, a bouncing knee, and a hunch over himself speak volumes to how disquieted he feels about Eren’s proposition. Sasha, too, bites her nails in earnest, down to the cuticle. Apprehension hangs thick as a blanket over the three of them. Jean can’t help the hand that slides through ash blond over and over again.

“This is insane,” Jean says, not surprised to find he means it. His mouth continues moving on its own. “Eren’s insane.”

“What’s that idiot think he’s doin’,” grumbles Sasha, spitting out a nail. Connie slaps her hand, to which she chomps at in warning.

Retreating, Connie turns sharp eyes to Jean. “Did you notice?” 

Try as he might to ignore the cold tendrils of unease that prickle under his skin, Jean raises his guard, a knee-jerk reaction for all things concerning Eren. “Notice what?”

“You know, Eren…becoming this.”

Ah…yes. Hit Jean where it hurts. And it hurts because Jean _has_ noticed Eren changing—well, noticed his change while it was happening, anyway. Like a sunset, slowly then all at once, the life in those eyes had gone out to leave Eren a husk of his former self. Even before coming to Marley, Jean and Eren hadn’t been intimate in weeks; every attempt at any semblance of affection had been dodged, redirected, ignored. And Jean had given him that, because what other course did he have? It wasn’t a shift in dynamic he could fix with a wordy brawl.

They still slept next to each other in their bunks, and often Jean would wake up with Eren clutching shaky fingers to his chest, expression contorted and drenched in cold sweat as if locked in a nightmare. Sometimes he would hold Eren until dawn rose, dapple light kisses on the top of his head. Other times he would rustle Eren awake with the care he would show a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. He had never asked what exactly Eren saw while he slept, though, never found out what turned him into that picture of misery. Cruel retrospection constricts his throat—where would they be now if he’d just _asked?_

Jean thought things were looking up when they had shared drinks with the refugees—there were rare moments Eren graced that beautiful face with tiny smiles, and the sight has already been permanently stored away in the recesses of his mind because he doesn’t know when or _if_ he’ll see Eren smile again, not after he disappeared on him like he has. Only to come back to him like this. The irony of it all is like a slap in the face: the very day after Jean allowed sprigs of hope to sprout in his chest is the day Eren spirited himself away, and now Jean doesn’t know what is right to be hopeful about anymore.

“I…didn’t expect this,” he admits. He ducks his face into his hands, hiding like a coward from his friends’ scrutiny. “I could never have foreseen any of this.”

Tight silence is Connie and Sasha’s only response as they resign to sit there marinating in the reality of what’s to come. Their humanity is on the line, even against enemies. The innocent won’t remain unscathed, and that is something that Eren already accounts for—something he can live with. Jean’s stomach churns.

“He’s always been a do or die kind of guy, but this,” Connie continues eventually, lifting the letter he hasn’t let go of, “is massacre.”

Remnants of heated gazes and motivational speeches and blazing hatred that had burned within Eren years ago are still there in that letter, simmered into vengeful embers, quietly contained wrath. Connie is asking the wrong person for answers, and Jean has half a mind to confront Armin and shake fruitless answers from him because even if Armin knows _why,_ answers will do them no good anymore. In a week they’ll wage war on the guilty and guiltless alike.

“You don’t suppose this could be a bad joke, do you?” Sasha wonders aloud.

“This is Eren we’re talking about. I don’t think the bastard’s made a single joke in his life.”

“That can’t be true…Jean, is that true?”

“Even if he has, this is serious, Sasha.”

And while Jean knows Sasha is just doing her best to cope, he really doesn’t want his friends to delude themselves into thinking he’s some kind of Eren oracle; if anything, that would be the opposite of the truth. Part of his attraction to Eren always fixated on his hotwire nature, the mystery of figuring out what makes him tick, aside from his titan mantra that got turned on its head in his father’s basement. The dissonance between them is, or _was,_ the tether that wrought them close. But Eren has always been a book Jean is unable to read.

Some lover he is.

“When we see him next I’ll give him a good punch in the gut, make him go spillin’ out his dinner,” Sasha promises, and Jean allows himself a breath of a chuckle. Even Connie approves, his faint grin and slap to Sasha’s shoulder oozing solidarity. Yes, they’ll go to war and they’ll do things they’ll regret. But when they come back they will be alive to regret together.


	2. moment

That night, Jean dreams. He doesn’t dream often, so this particular display of the unconscious is vivid and memorable, tangible in his helpless state. He’s holding Eren, and of course he is, the bastard occupies ninety percent of his brain activity at all hours of the day. But he’s _holding_ him now, hot and open and pliant beneath him, uttering guttural moans as Jean pushes himself into familiar heat and need and want. He catches vague lips with his own, swallows sounds he’ll hang onto when consciousness betrays him, fucks into him like an unhinged virgin tasting sex for the first time.

In his dream Eren cries his name over and over again, a broken stream of consonants and syllables that turn into nothing but babble by the time Jean is coming and spilling _hard_ within him, denied of this by months of silence and absence. He’s wrenching Eren by the hair to force ocean green to meet hazel, armed to parrot questions at him, but then his eyes flutter open to meet dark ceiling and shadows of remorse.

_Fuck._

Jean brings a hand up, covers his eyes to avert his shame. His first dream since coming to Marley is one about Eren, _fucking Eren,_ the way he has so many times but now feels so unreal. It’s laughable, and he chokes out a humorless sound that deflates him like one of those popped balloon things kids on the continent love so much. It’s early, judging by the lack of light filtering in from curtained windows, and Connie is snoring familiarly next to him. As Jean’s hand trails down, he asks something of a prayer that Connie doesn’t wake up for the next five minutes while he takes care of himself.

Flashes of damp tan skin, taut muscle and a long neck dance for him, writhing and moaning and pleading like in his dream. The rough timber of Eren’s voice isn’t detached or cold, it’s heartfelt and full of life and longing. Jean is hot, so _hot_ under the covers as he desperately strokes and cups and palms, picturing cupid’s bow lips wrapping around him, and it’s memories of a swift tongue and knowing eyes that thrust him over the edge, the ghost of Eren’s name wishing to echo through the empty room but dying in vain in Jean’s throat. His breath is haggard as he comes down from a high place.

_I am so royally fucked._

No one asks why Jean is in a fresh change of clothes while they eat a mostly silent breakfast together; they either don’t notice or don’t care.

Armin and Hange are the only talkative pair, bouncing ideas off each other in preparation for their makeshift plan. They don’t mention Eren much, but every time Armin does his gaze turns downcast and Hange’s lips crush into a thin line. Levi has a track record of three shattered teacups. Like clockwork Sasha and Connie exchange similar awkward glances. This is the welcome party Eren will come home to.

Miss Kiyomi isn’t seen around much at all the next few days. As Paradisians, no one assumes any authority to question her, so she’s left alone to flit about as she pleases. Levi doesn’t even try to get Mikasa to butter herself up to the woman in attempt to figure her out, speaking high volumes to how the looming festival day is taking its toll on him.

When Armin and Hange aren’t in the room, everyone likes to pretend that Eren doesn’t exist. Even Mikasa hasn’t said his name in days. Jean has tried and failed several times to work up the courage to mention him to her, to ask how she feels about it, because it looks like she is taking it even worse than him, eyes dull and lifeless and cheekbones jutting from malnourishment. She picks at her food, gives most of it to Sasha, speaks in clipped sentences when addressed. Jean at one point pulls Armin aside into the kitchen to ask him if he’s broached the subject with her yet.

“Once, yes,” Armin confirms, “but she shut me down. Harshly, in fact. But she apologized. She always apologizes.” He knots bony fingers together, wrapping them around again and again. “I know you’re not taking this lightly, either.”

If anyone were to calculate the depth to Jean and Eren’s so-called friendship it would be Armin, and Jean doesn’t know if Armin is taking a stab at that right now but either way it’s unimportant. “I still can’t believe neither of us saw this coming,” is all he can say.

“We can’t beat ourselves up for that forever,” Armin huffs dryly. He plucks an apple from a fruit bowl display, begins tossing it lightly in one hand, preferring to admire the supple red of its skin instead of Jean. “You know, I’ve been spending half of my time working out some semblance of a plan with Commander Hange and the other half entertaining Captain Levi’s ideas about sniffing Eren out. He really said too much in that letter.” Armin sounds wounded. They all are, to an extent, nursing the blow in different scales. Jean gauges Armin’s torment to be close to his own. There’s anger in that tight-lipped but somehow mellow way Armin gets upset, but more misery than anything else clouds sky-blue eyes, lamenting the inevitable. Signs of loss.

“Do you think he knows what this is doing to us?” Jean asks, watching the apple go up again and again. He omits, _Do you think he cares?_

The apple falls a final time in Armin’s hand. He places it back into the little bowl gently, silent as he really considers Eren’s psyche. Then, “He made his peace with what this would do to us the day he left.” Sharp, eviscerating perception Jean had been avoiding on his own stabs the space between them. How well Armin knows Eren used to prick at Jean, annoying and childish jealousy a frigid and relentless entity in his gut. Now it just depresses him as it lays bare the lucidity of Eren’s decision to commit them all to this.

“Good luck with the plan,” Jean says after a pause, acknowledging that truth in how he refuses to acknowledge it. “I just hope we all make it back in one piece.”

To that, Armin gives a tiny nod, and they go their lonesome separate ways in the Azumabito residence.

* * *

_“Do you have epiphanies, Jean?”_

_Jean’s fingers stop where they card in Eren’s hair, halted by the suddenness of the odd unprompted question. Complete silence between them preceded Eren’s strange whimsy, their only ambiance the sound of waves crashing into bordering cliff and shore alike. They sit together in a secluded secret cove they’d discovered one day wandering along the shoreline, far off from camp and prying eyes. The occasional crab sidesteps around them, demonstrating their claws in warning; seagulls caw from open sky above and sometimes dive into the sea, reemerging with silver glints of mackerel. The relative newness of these creatures never fails to entertain Jean._

_The two come here often; more often than Captain Levi likes but he hasn’t confronted Jean about it so he can’t have pieced together that Jean is the one stealing Eren away time and again. It speaks a little to Jean’s overall insignificance in the grand scheme of Eldia, but he contents himself to think that their cover hasn’t quite been blown because Levi can have something of a one-track mind when it comes to Eren._

_The man of the hour lays in front of him in the sand, head propped on Jean’s crossed legs, staring out at the sea as if lost in the horizon. He does a lot of that nowadays to accent mumbled vagaries out of the blue; sometimes to Jean, sometimes to no one in particular. It’s odd, yes, but Eren is unquantifiable to begin with, so Jean finds himself humoring this particular quirk more than he discourages it._

_“Epiphanies, huh? Doesn’t everyone have them?” His fingers resume working on lengthy brunet locks. Eren has been growing out his hair and Jean has found himself strangely appreciative of it as of late. It suits him._

_Vibrations tremor through Eren as he hums noncommittally. “So you do have them.”_

_“Well, yeah. On and off the battlefield. More on than off, though.”_

_“Really? I’d say I’m the opposite.”_

_Jean lowers a hand to cup Eren’s cheek, and he rubs smooth sun kissed skin with fond softness. “Have you been having many epiphanies lately, then?”_

_A shrug bounces off Jean’s knees. “Sometimes I feel like I have too many. Other times,” he twirls a hand, “not enough.”_

_Worry tugs a bit in Jean’s chest, and he tips Eren’s head back so he can see him, studies the lack of presence in Eren’s blank stare. “Are you okay, Eren?”_

_Rushing seawater almost drowns out the subtle “I’m fine” Eren provides, and Jean has to read his lips to ensure that’s indeed what Eren had said. A lowered chin later, Eren is back to staring off into the distance. Jean doesn’t know if he should press him—Eren has been acting more or less like this for ages now, nothing novel here, the standard Eren Yeager procedure. But the salty ocean air around him is suddenly colder than it had been a minute ago, the walls of the cove a little closer, more constricting. Jean goes back to playing with Eren’s hair but keeps his eyes on Eren now, hyperaware of the rise and fall of his chest._

_It’s been a long while since Jean last called Eren a suicidal bastard, and that’s mostly because he simply hates the stupid nickname now. Jean doesn’t want to think about the shudder of breath leaving Eren’s body for the last time, for rigor mortis to immortalize Eren into a final lifeless pose, an empty state of being. Eren dying would always be an act of suicide, he’s sure of it. Not in the traditional sense, he supposes, but in the careless way Eren thrusts himself towards danger, thinking of nothing but the way forward, desperation for victory pounding in his veins._

_It pains Jean to think of the way Eren will die, so he doesn’t ponder it often. He holds the reality of the short time Eren has left naturally at arm’s length, as far as he can get it to go. Five years is better than nothing, but one day it will feel like a blink. Jean wants to spend most of Eren’s remaining days relishing Eren’s warmth, his rare laughter, and even his sadness, because Eren seems despondent much too often lately, and Jean likes being by his side to exhaust all the ways he can cheer him up._

_“Do you remember what Onyankopon told us? About the existence of god and stuff?” Jean asks a quiet vagary of his own._

_Another little shrug. “I remember some of it. Heaven and hell, right? The afterlife?”_

_“Yeah, that. Do you believe in it?” Jean’s hand stills once more._

_With bated breath Jean decides to count seagulls as silence drags out like a cruel joke, and he is just beginning to accept the fact that he either missed Eren’s answer or his lack of an answer is answer enough when Eren says, “Not really. It sounds too optimistic. Why would anyone want to endure the hell of living when we could just party it up in the clouds?”_

_Despite himself, a little laugh escapes Jean. “Well, I think it would be nice. Time doesn’t mean anything in heaven, right? We could kind of be up there together forever, or whatever,” Jean admits and god damn him, he sounds like such a pile of mush._

_A single gloomy chuckle from Eren is felt more than it’s heard. “What makes you so sure we’d be going to heaven?”_

_Faces of people Jean’s killed flicker in his mind, and the terror he sees in their eyes wear at his soul, a misfortunate reminder of atrocities he has committed. It occurs to him with a heavy thud of his heart that Eren has done worse—considerably worse, as he recalls Eren’s clash with Annie in Stohess district. All the lives that were lost on campaigns and retrievals. How he knows Eren blames himself for their deaths, too, not just the ones he has caused firsthand._

_Jean reaches now for one of Eren’s hands, unmarred by bite scars thanks to wonderfully accursed titan shifter biology. He kisses it, then strokes his thumb over the spot Eren habitually abuses with idle care. The wounds always heal, yes, but that doesn’t mean the pain was never real._

_“I can’t be positive, I guess. I can just…hope that god is forgiving. Something you could get used to doing yourself,” Jean says. He twines his fingers with Eren’s and squeezes, firm and anchoring but not hard enough to hurt. Eren squeezes back, and this time he says nothing._

* * *

Fear is a common denominator with regard to motivation for the weak. The rush of adrenaline as fight or flight instincts kick in and the clarity it provides is something Jean has experienced many times in his life. He has faced it against titans, accepted it with Eren’s proclamation, and he braves it now, standing in front of Mikasa and Sasha’s borrowed room, ready to rap an unsteady knock on the door and confront her face to face for the first time since the letter was delivered. He gulps on a dry tongue and raises a hand.

Before he can reach rich mahogany, the silver knob slides in a semicircle and the door cracks open to reveal Mikasa on the other side. Jean staggers backwards to give her space as she blinks, startled by his presence no doubt. Deep obsidian questions hazel.

“Jean?” There’s no need for a greeting, he supposes—Mikasa is smart, she probably knows why he is here. He rubs at his nape, fumbling for opening words. Talking to pretty women has never been his forte, and although Jean has long since abandoned his schoolboy crush on Mikasa, she is no easier to speak with now that they are alone than it had been for the first time years ago as a cadet.

He’s just opening his mouth to splutter whatever comes to mind when Mikasa interrupts him. “Good timing, actually…I was actually going to come to you to talk.” Jean resents how fragile she sounds. He is reminded of a butchered speech on a rooftop in Trost that rallied no one, a speech that Jean picked up and resurrected by the skin of his teeth, turned it into a surge of competitive morale. “About Eren.”

“Yes…about Eren.” Jean is sweating, visible little beads forming along his hairline and where he rubs along his neck, his pulse kicking up as Mikasa gestures and leads him into her room. Sasha isn’t present, thankfully, no need to kick her out. Mikasa closes the door behind him and the newfound intimate silence alienates him, accented by the lack of any furniture but a single bed to sit on. Jean quite pointedly stands by the window.

“I won’t…pry,” she begins, “about the two of you. I don’t delude myself into thinking it’s something other than what I do think it is, but that isn’t why I’ve brought this up now.” Ah, so she _did_ know. It’s hard not to reel. Questions erupt beneath Jean’s surface with the force of an active volcano, but his mouth and tongue aren’t functioning, _how long have you known, do you hate me, I’m sorry for keeping it a secret, you have every right to despise me,_ but Mikasa isn’t done.

“I just want Eren to be happy. And if that happiness is something you can give him, I’ll be…supportive of that. But this…this doesn’t lead me to believe Eren is happy right now. Not remotely.” She gestures not at Jean but around her in general. Jean gets the picture.

He licks his lips just to make sure he still has agency over his own motor function. “Believe me, I didn’t know about this. At all. I wish I had, _god_ I wish I had. But who could have thought that—”

“I didn’t think you knew, Jean. But…you’re missing my point.”

“Which is?” Jean bids her no sarcasm. He respects Mikasa too much to feign petty.

It looks as if Mikasa is struggling with her next line, broadcasted in the fidget of one foot, the tightening of slim fingers on biceps where her arms are crossed. She appears only a hair less uncomfortable than Jean, and he braces himself for the impact of what’s conflicting her. “I’m thinking that maybe…when Eren comes back to us…it would be best for you to distance yourself from him. I’m not…blaming you, for what happened. At all. Please don’t think that. I just believe that maybe…if it was someone else, they may have…caught on. To this.” Feminine lips quivering, eyes wet, those shaky words hit Jean square in the chest like a boulder heavier than he could have imagined. Yeah, he isn’t well-equipped enough to brace himself for the devastation he’s been dealt.

“Please say something,” she continues, hollow.

Jean feels bottomed out. He never expected Mikasa to tell him something of this magnitude, and it shakes him to his core because her argument rings true, fishes up a suspicion that may have been lurking in his subconscious for days now that he buried deep, because it is a wildfire burning Jean to ashes where he now stands. What if it _was_ someone else? Armin, Mikasa? Would they have talked openly and honestly with Eren because they wouldn’t have clung to the fragile peace Jean had fashioned—coveted, even, under a guise of omission and ignorance? They surely wouldn’t have swept Eren’s odd behavior under the rug as he did so, _so_ many times while they were alone together, forcibly constructing excuses thin as ice is when spring breaks. He has no right to be upset with her, and he isn’t. He is horrified with himself.

Only now does Jean realize he has indeed fallen back, and the weight of his shoulders creaks the glass of the windowpane, sweaty palms planted on the ledge hold him up. His voice is gritty in his throat when he finally says, “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be.” Mikasa shakes her head in small movements, and her eyes are on the floor. “That’s not why I said that.”

His clutch on the ledge tightens as he prepares himself to ask. He’s tired of looking the other way, tired of pretending. Jean doesn’t want to be the kind of man who lies to himself any longer. He thought he had abandoned that façade courtesy of Marco’s demise, something he has yet to forgive himself for. Evidently, he has not.

“Do you think it would have been different…if it was you?” His question isn’t meant to cut, rather to reveal. He sounds defeated

Mikasa waits a long moment while she considers it. She’s as crushed as Jean when she confesses simply, matter-of-fact, “I do.”

Jean nods, because what else can he really do? He stumbles past Mikasa flat-footed, headed for the door. When he reaches it he ekes out another flimsy apology before leaving Mikasa, small and solitary, behind him.


End file.
